U.S. Department of Education Weighs in Against an Oregon Bill which would Make it Easier for Students to Opt Out of Testing

The question of the ability of students to “opt out” of mandated standardized testing is one that occupied many school districts during Connecticut’s most recent round of statewide testing. The U.S. Department of Education has now weighed in on this issue in response to efforts in Oregon to enable parents to opt out of standardized testing more easily.

A bill currently in the Oregon House of Representatives, HB 2655, would require schools to notify parents at the start of the school year of any standardized testing that their children will face. In addition, thirty days before the tests, school districts would be required to send parents information on how to opt out their children from testing. The bill would also allow parents to opt out their child without citing a basis for the requested opt out, eliminating a current requirement that parents must cite a religious justification for opting out. Finally, the bill would require two performance ratings for schools with a high rate of opt outs, with one of the two ratings not showing the penalty (schools that have too few students taking the test are penalized in state performance rankings) for testing too few students.

Oregon currently receives $140 million a year in Title I funding. In order to continue to receive these funds, Oregon is required to test every student in grades 3 through 8, and grade 11, in reading and math each year. The state also has to create and follow a plan to downgrade the performance ratings of schools if they don’t test at least 95% of their students in each demographic category. The more lenient opt out rules contained in HB 2655 would almost certainly result in many, if not most, of Oregon schools failing to meet the 95% target.

In an email to Oregon school’s chief, Rob Saxton, Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education, Deborah Delisle, warned Oregon that it was at risk of losing federal funds if the legislature votes to approve HB 2655. Delisle wrote that the proposed bill was “proactively encouraging parents to opt students out of assessments and failing to hold districts and schools accountable.” According to Delisle, all $325 million of Oregon’s annual federal funding could be withheld as result, with the Title I funds in the greatest jeopardy. Given the stance of the Department of Education, the issue of standardized testing and the right of parents to “opt out” their children is not going away.

DISCLAIMER: Because of the generality of this update, the information provided herein may not be applicable in all situations and should not be acted upon without specific legal advice based on particular situations.

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JD Supra Privacy Policy

Updated: May 25, 2018:

JD Supra is a legal publishing service that connects experts and their content with broader audiences of professionals, journalists and associations.

This Privacy Policy describes how JD Supra, LLC ("JD Supra" or "we," "us," or "our") collects, uses and shares personal data collected from visitors to our website (located at www.jdsupra.com) (our "Website") who view only publicly-available content as well as subscribers to our services (such as our email digests or author tools)(our "Services"). By using our Website and registering for one of our Services, you are agreeing to the terms of this Privacy Policy.

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If you choose to use our Website and Services to communicate directly with a company or individual, such communication may be shared accordingly.

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Our Website may offer you the opportunity to share information through our Website, such as through Facebook's "Like" or Twitter's "Tweet" button. We offer this functionality to help generate interest in our Website and content and to permit you to recommend content to your contacts. You should be aware that sharing through such functionality may result in information being collected by the applicable social media network and possibly being made publicly available (for example, through a search engine). Any such information collection would be subject to such third party social media network's privacy policy.

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Pursuant to Section 1798.83 of the California Civil Code, our customers who are California residents have the right to request certain information regarding our disclosure of personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes.

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Changes in Our Privacy Policy

We reserve the right to change this Privacy Policy at any time. Please refer to the date at the top of this page to determine when this Policy was last revised. Any changes to our Privacy Policy will become effective upon posting of the revised policy on the Website. By continuing to use our Website and Services following such changes, you will be deemed to have agreed to such changes.

Contacting JD Supra

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Updates to This Policy

We may update this cookie policy and our Privacy Policy from time-to-time, particularly as technology changes. You can always check this page for the latest version. We may also notify you of changes to our privacy policy by email.

Contacting JD Supra

If you have any questions about how we use cookies and other tracking technologies, please contact us at: privacy@jdsupra.com.

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